Techiness
I'll clump web design talk and gadget talk here, I guess.
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Upcoming Granny Squares updates
Over the weekend of April 22, ye olde Granny Squares Color Generator is getting some upgrades! Unlike previous updates, I’m kinda-sorta locking down the database for this one, so blankets can’t be saved during the maintenance window. It includes getting rid of the already-broken Twitter login (fuck twitter), adding email/password auth, and allowing multiple login methods per user. Not a ton of flashy blanket-related features, but there’s a big database normalization that enables me to set up a not-terrible RESTful API layer, which then lets me implement new blankety features using React. I went into lots of detail over on the GSC forums, so go read that.
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Using Google Assistant with Habitica
So here’s what I did instead of finishing part two of my video game post (or doing FPG work) last night: I got a little service in place so that I can use Google Assistant to add tasks to Habitica, my (adorable) task tracking system. I quite often think of to dos while I’m driving, and haven’t had a good way to get them into Habitica. They’re often quick, contextual thoughts that won’t stick around, like a reminder to check if there’s a Beat Saber map for a song or artist I’m listening to, or a note to check out a game from a podcast I’m listening to. It’s best,…
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Migrating G Suite to Gmail
Have Google Home and a G Suite account and wish your calendar was accessible? Good luck waiting for Google (2+ years) or messing around with external services to bridge the gap. An alternative is to switch back to Gmail and get it to send/receive using your personalized domain. Ugh. Unfortunately, Google seems to be sticking to the idea that G Suite is now for businesses, not personal use, so there are a few things G Suite users are being denied. I have a Google Apps for Domains account (now G Suite) for irrsinn.net, and have for years. A lot of stuff to tied to it–OAuth, Hangouts history, voice personalization, keyboard…
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Long-awaited Granny Squares Design Going Live
Years, folks. Years. That weird fabric texture background is finally going away. Ever since I’ve thrown myself full-tilt at Future Proof Games, I’ve let my older side projects run as they are with no updates from me unless something was catastrophically wrong. A lot has changed on the web since Granny Square Colors got a major update from me, though: tablets and smartphones are even more popular among the GSC user base, Internet Explorer isn’t the worst thing to develop for anymore, and I’m a way better architect and coder than I was a handful of years ago.
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Deploying “The Whispering Thing”
After the shenanigans of getting that site pushing, building, testing, and deploying from git to Jenkins to DreamHost, I was able to get deployment for “The Whispering Thing” in place while I slept. Seriously, Jira says I clocked 90 minutes, and that’s with versioning (details below) and using a new service–DreamObjects. Twine (what “The Whispering Thing” is written in) produces a single HTML file with all CSS and JS right in the file. A dream for deployment–just put it somewhere. DreamObjects is–from my perspective–like S3, but doesn’t require me to start the clock ticking on Future Proof Games’ free tier status with Amazon Web Services. DreamObjects is API-compliant with S3,…
